New YouTube video of Keith Raniere with appreciative disciple

Short summary: Keith Raniere (aka Vanguard) claims that the vast majority of critics of Executive Success Program / NXIVM have criminal records and are “cynics” who try to paint good as bad (this is a dog-whistle for ESP members who have been indoctrinated that such people are “suppressives” or “Luciferians” who have “taken the Fall”) rather than rational “skeptics” (which he claims to be himself). Complete nonsense. Cult psychiatrist Dr. John Hochman, cult recovery counselor Paul Martin Ph.D, Albany Times-Union reporters James Odato and Jennifer Gish, Vanity Fair journalist Suzanna Andrews, New York Post reporter Emily Smith, Forbes journalists Michael Freedman, Phyllis Berman, and Nathan Vardi. All “skeptics” who have criticised ESP / NXIVM as a dangerous cult-like entity. None are criminal. Former Executive Success Program / NXIVM members Toni Natalie, Susan Dones, Kim Woolhouse, Barbara Bouchey, and Kristin Keeffe. People with inside knowledge who overcame their indoctrination and now criticize the cult. None are criminal. Vanguard / Raniere may be referring to cult expert and exit counselor Rick Alan Ross. According to Wikipedia: “During an interview with the New York Daily News in 2004, Ross said, “I was young and foolish and made mistakes that I deeply regret. I did whatever the court required, completed my probation in 1979, and the guilty verdicts were vacated in 1983. I have gone on with my life and never again got in that kind of trouble.” “Ross faced charges of unlawful imprisonment over a 1991 forcible deprogramming of United Pentecostal Church International member Jason Scott; a jury acquitted him at trial.” Scott did win a civil (non-criminal) lawsuit against Ross, with support from the Church of Scientology, which Ross had also criticized. But the final settlement was only $5000 and 200 hours of community service for Ross. It IS common for Raniere / Vanguard and Executive Success Program / NXIVM to attempt to have prosecutors bring criminal charges against its critics. Before she left NXIVM, Kristin Keeffe's main job in fact was promoting civil lawsuits and criminal charges against ex-members and critics. This usually fails (charges were brought against Odato, Andrews, and Bouchey, but later dropped). It sometimes succeeds. Charges were brought in New York State against Joseph O'Hara, a former NXIVM consultant who quit when he discovered evidence of illegal activity, later dropped, but further charges in Texas, likely promoted by NXIVM, but unrelated to his work with NXIVM, did result in a conviction. Blog critic John Tighe was convicted on child pornography charges; many believe that the porn was planted in his computer by NXIVM. And of course the tax charges against our host Frank Parlato are another example of Raniere / Vanguard and NXIVM / Executiv Success Program urging prosecutor Anthony Bruce to mislead a grand jury into bringing charges (nearly all of which would have been dropped had Parlato been willing to plea-bargain).

Wait a second. Isn't Rational Inquiry a proprietary tool or technology, and the people who decide to take it must sign an NDA, i.e. a Non-Disclosure Agreement that requires them under the threat of law that they are not to speak about anything that they learn about it to others? So, pray tell, how are people supposed to rationally criticize the tool, technology, methodology, etc.,when they are bound by law not to speak about it? When someone did talk about it by giving the course materials to Rick Ross who then put them into the hands of the credentialed psychiatrists to assess it the results of whom he subsequently put online, he was sued by NXIVM. So how does this Raniere guy expect people to have more than cynics when those who talk about what they learn can't actually talk about it? Is it only those who speak highly about it and him – who have taken the courses and apparently continue to do so – and seemingly only hawk for him, are those the only people who can only indirectly speak about it? As far as I know, people aren't so much as concerned with the course material as such, but what it begins to entail. As Rick Ross and other cult researchers have detailed, cults are onion-like and simply use business facades as hooks. It's only as people get more and more involved, and it takes up more and more of their time, when the more nefarious things become apparent. And these are the things that have already been publicly alleged in other media sources that don't need to be delved into here by people who have left, e.g., the emotional and sexual manipulation. This guy seems to always be deflecting responsibility onto others and not himself for his own actions and their results: it's the media talking bad about him, or always someone else. And that's expected since he apparently has another good – for him at least – multi-level marketing scam (all his past businesses have taken this form) going where he's fooled two rich girls whose family has a lot of high status connections that he can use to hawk for him.

“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4i03j2XBxU” Notice how in this video, he says absolutely nothing about how it works. The title of this video as a short statement on the content of this video is simply inapplicable. 'It's just a tool that works better than other tools in some circumstances'. He's a half-way decent rhetorician who effectively says nothing, but presents it like he's said something substantial. Appending “rational” to a tool and repeating it doesn't make it such. In other words, it's snake oil that manipulates people's beliefs to make it seem like they've solved something they've done on their own. There are plenty of scientifically accredited individuals who can help people overcome their own self-imposed limitations or fears that have no real basis in reality. They're called psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors, therapists, etc. Also, it's been “patent-pending” for now for over fifteen years.

Raniere alleges in the video that he – and by way of extendsion, NXIVM – teaches others to speak and behave with honor. Where was such honor in the patent case that was recently dismissed last year that is referenced here? “https://culteducation.com/group/907-nxivm/29684-patent-infringement-case-against-at-t-microsoft-dismissed.html” According to the the judge, Raniere acted on “bad faith” and “vexatiously multiplied” the proceedings. Also, he “engaged in a pattern of obfuscation, offering inconsistent theories and arguments and promising to produce evidence that never materialized.” In another article referenced here “http://www.law.com/sites/almstaff/2016/09/07/self-help-guru-takes-expensive-hit-in-patent-suit/?slreturn=20170105174024”, the judge described him as “untruthful” and that his “promises never bore out”, that the “court found that plaintiff engaged in deliberately misleading conduct to obscure and complicate the standing issue”, the “plaintiff’s conduct, in the court’s view, demonstrated a clear history of delay and contumacious conduct”, and that “he made false and misleading representations during the litigation.” I'm not a smart man, but I do know what honor is, and none of these conclusions of his behavior as determined by the court remotely reflect anything honorable.